His Body Tattooed into My Skin

In 2015 I walked into a local tattoo parlor in Cottonwood, AZ 86326. I carried in my red right hand, a clear glass vial about the size of a roll of quarters. My uncle's ashes fill it's cylindrical shape.

Handing them off to my artist, he sets to work scooping up supplies and dawning blackened gloves. Slowly, and cautiously he taps out the cremated remains of my late Uncle, Jimmi Murray (my best friend), who had died 8 years before today. He passed only 5 years after serving a 12 year sentence behind bars. His arrest and departure from my life was so traumatic, that a huge part of myself was lost along with him.

My artist is careful to show respect and he works calmly with the remains, dropping bit by bit, small ashes and crushed white bones into pitch black tattoo ink, like a black void absorbs pain.

Today I am here. Today I love my uncle as much as I ever had. My grief still too wounding, I find my Chi. I brave, and allow him to be tattooed deep into my pale flesh. The lyrics of his favorite song mix with his atoms and together they puncture my skin, dot by dot. Dash by dash. 1's and 0's meant to bring peace to my Irish aching heart.

"Take me to the place I love, take me all the way." Words forever etched. Ashes forever inked.

Five years after inking him into my skin, I'm living in the place I love. Coastal Oregon. But my soul is still yet to feel peace about his death and the life that I have lived since he left.

By chance, I am introduced to a person who has also experienced a tragic loss; the loss of his own Mother. She had died March 11, 2011 in the Tsunami that rocked Japan. The last time he had seen her, he was only 8 years old. Her body was never recovered.

The energy pulsating from within him, crashed like a wave against my own.

An explosion of creative energy bombs itself into my art. A special one of a kind piece made just for him off the energy he gifted me with. An origami box. I've made hundreds before, but this one is special. In the center of it's vessel, I mix in some of Jimmi's ashes into it before gifting it to him.

And just like the tsunami that took her to the bottom of the deep blue sea, his wave of energy collided magnificently into mine and my Uncle's.

We would share art with each other over the next few days. Some of his. Some of mine. A lot from other artists. Music. Lyrics. Painting. Symbols. Images. Technology transferred between us, adding to the electrical charge. And then, one fateful night, we would each confess to the other a specific song that sounded like our souls crying.

For him it was Childish Gambino's Flight of the Navigator. I record my face as I listen to the song for the first time. Miles away, he lights a candle before listening to my pick of Hozier - Movement. At the exact same time in history, we individually listen to each other's soul sounds. In the end, he blows the candle out and I feel free for the very first time. In that freedom, listening to his song, I suddenly have flashbacks of difficult times in my life, like losing my uncle once to prison, and then again to death years later. But I can also see HIM, and I can also see his mother. Their last embrace and the power of her love rippling out across oceans and galaxies.

This is a poetic rendition of what I experienced that night, as I closed my eyes, and fully felt, saw, touched, smelled, and heard our two songs swirl together to make one brand new, tremendously gorgeous piece of cinematic and orchestra like experience.

-----------

...........

I'm having FEELINGS again.

Do you remember feelings?

Do you have them every day?

We've been speaking for somewhere between 11 seconds to 333 decades. It could be two days, or it could be twenty eons. He's been beside me for infinity. I've been his best friend for even longer. We've held hands across galaxy's. We've kissed on mars. We grazed one another millions of times over.

It was '99. I was just 14 years old. He was 14 as well. Born in '85, we were separated before conception.

He looked up to the sky, and then made a move. I looked at my own life, and took a step forward. Two dreaming twins, walking away from one another, to go on separate adventures. Different journey's, on different timelines: they would echo out in time to each other like the drip drop of water on tin silver rooftops.

...

---

He was just a young man. The cusp of life cradling him like the moon holds a lasso.

And I... Exploding like Lebanon in a very yellow white flash.

Instantly, both our lives splashed, and began all over again; our second reincarnations. Our atoms scattered to wind, our mixed molecules, missing memories of our namesaked figures.

Echoing

For he: RUNNING AWAY was breathing at the bottom of a pool. Cool water. Blued oceaned eyes keep watch over him.

FROM HOME - heading west to 92037 from East in the 10464. Trails, roads, movements, jabs, and swirls would tumble his soul around the whole US of A.

I look up to the sky on 407 Yuma. I can hear him singing 111. I sent him a sigh of 000 and I imagine him as having the adventure of a lifetime, specific details of which, I admittedly have none. My stagnant stilled system longing for life to finally begin.

His birthday is 12-21-1985. The same birth month and day as my older brother. Cake after candles came years of shadowed celebrations. Japan. New York. California. Arizona. Texas. Nebraska. Colorado.

Oregon.

The winter solstice is also his mom's birth month and day. She's beautiful. Her porcelain cheek frozen in time, fragile to touch. She melts like the words on my tongue. Like the flakes of snow on my shoulder. Her voice is a gentle touch on my hand that guides our words as messages to him who is Her Bird.

Japan.

Small light wispy strands of her dark silk locks come loose from it's bun. They fall softly across her shoulders. She smiles at him; her young son is eight years old now and her pride falls on whispered words across the top of his head; a kiss of love knights it.

She tucks me in at night when I'm afraid. She holds him when he cries. She holds my hand while I sob. She whistles tunes to soothe us both. She watches over each of us and She makes the sound, the sounds the Sea makes, to calm us down.

Shhh...

---

His face in her soft hands.

His cheeks warm her fingertips.

She wears white shoes.

Her soul! It dehydrates suddenly, and it sticks in her throated airway like a choking of white rice. For a second her brain forgets how to breathe. Her red heart picks up pace and it strains her soul to beat. I can feel it's breaking presence, and mine breaks down beside her.

A last embrace.

She makes the sound, the sound the Sea makes, and cradles his heavy head against her chest.

Shhh---

...

3 slow, soft pats.

Heavy grief.

Mistaken thoughts race round, but are eased by a last squeeze.

She urges him on, directing him out to his father; to where he's standing.

Waiting.

A car ready.

Japan - She waves you audo My Grassy Green Bird.

Don't go.

Stay.

...

-

.-

--.

Oh, my bladed grass!

He turns to look one last time, climbing into the vehicle with a single suitcase. The USA awaits him. Her smile and delicate wave will be the last he sees of her.

Destructive waves will be the last she sees at all.

A scream cries out!

One! One! One!

Echoes tear pools of raining reds!

Zero! Zero! Zero!

I have never known grief more than the time that his mother closed her eyes, and imagined the small young face of her son in her hands, kissing his head goodbye. She held him tenderly; her, in Japan. He, on the coastline many moons away, looking for her.

Smiled crossed lips are splashed about her before she fades into the blue, deep at the bottom of the pool.

Cool water.

Peace. She had peace in that last breath. A soothed soul that warmed my dusky aura.

But still...

---

She called out to him. Needing him to know that she had found that peace. And so, though her body be no more, her soul raged on against the dying of the day. Her spirit etched into mine, my heart breaking just like hers.

I have felt her fire spirit die inside me night after breathless night. Her message churning inside me. Dozens of times over. I wake screaming into the black! Her presence at first, it haunts me! She stands by my side. She waits at my doorway. She rattles the knobs and shakes the windows to my room. My mind too fear filled to welcome her in.

She continues to drown in my soul. Sleepless nights that haunt my dreams and fill me fearing.

And then, one night, her death, she gifts me instead.

Her heart ablaze, I lean into her presence and she echos her peace to me with instructions that I pass them on when we meet again: Her Baby Bird, now My Sparrowed Raven. My bladed grass.

Are you afraid of me?

Are you afraid of me now?

Did you feel it?

Did you feel it inside your soul??

Did you hear it? Did you hear her voice echo from within me while we looked up to the sky that night?

For I cried out!

"111"!

I hear your dots and dashes echoing back. Your 1's and 0's I receive.

111/000.

Dots and dashes.

Coded languages we've not yet learned to speak. So we thrash out and cry! But our voices could not be heard too loud.

Pi-ed faces and messy hair.

Japan calls me to run to her shore while the twisting tides swirl me to Ireland's emerald door.

Rare is this love. Keep it covered and run to me lover!

On 3.1415 I traveled with Einstein to births door. Shadowed birthdays celebrated. Darkened my soul it did become.

For every tear I would ever weep, flowed a wave of brain games and manipulation so deep, that my very idea of humanity as a whole would be put into question.

The blue waved fire contained in my core, I locked my love away like a Woman's Door.

Keep it covered.

Rare is this love.

At year of eight, there was no knock that night on our door.

Instead, boots were sounded.

Gun metal would smell.

Echos would be cast out.

Screaming 111!!!

Crying 000!!!

There were too many of them.

They wore loud shoes,

and their boots;

they would be black.

They made grey whale songs as they stomped through our home.

Their texture would compress the carpet with each strided step.

The weight of their armour

sinking them just ever so deeper to the bottom of the Sea and the sound that she makes.

Shhh---...

My mothers spinning arms push me out, directing me to move forward.

Go.

Go.

Going.

Gone.

Up the stairs we ran.

Five tiny siblings sobbing silently.

Confused fear was all consuming.

We hid the best we could.

Sounds of deep voices pounding into the night triggering visceral reactions.

Of this fear, I would feel many more times in my journey.

Did My Sparrow feel them too?

Could he feel my sobbed dots and pained dashes?

That night, they took him: that one Uncle we both shared. Jimmy.

He was gone forever, like the shattering sound of every tear she would ever weep.

Keep it covered, and run to me lover.

Run.

Run.

Run until you feel your lungs bleeding.

My Uncle, my best friend. I feel him still near, though razor wire and metals cages contain him afar.

I still feel the air brushing my skin, as he swept my tiny frame up into the sky, before spinning me down in deep green circles. Like starey David's adorning draddles.

The tangerine oxygen is warm and smooth as it downs my lungs. He'd drop me to my feet so we could race through weeping willows to chicken coops for fresh eggs.

For what is happier than a child with Easter every day? A hunt with Uncle Jimmi was the only way I wanted life to be. Tarzan and I swinging on Willowed Waves back to the breakfast table.

But heard black boots and smelly gun grey's have taken him.

I remember emptiness most of all. His scent no longer filled my nose. His voice no longer smoothed my brain. His hands no longer held me up to reach the highest apples in the orchards. But I searched for him still. Every chance I could. Would he be there outside to meet me for chicken races?

Perhaps I would see him tomorrow with his bride and her cigarettes in hand. Too hot for my arm, they burn.

I slowly become a half of a whole of me, time sliping and moving like Atlas in his Sleepin'.

14 comes fast. Those years, for they glide quicker than I imagine. But yet, I am ever looking for my best friend. I can feel him somewhere. Uncle! Why do you hide from me still?

Yet I know these are not our childlike games, I still seek. You still evade.

Desperation fills my soul and situations a child should never have to face, begin to surface from the bottom of a pool; I was moving without moving.

Cool water.

Rape.

Violence.

Death.

Abuse.

Child marriage.

Child birthing children.

Abandonment.

Sickness.

Chaotic energy swells like an Awesome Wave deep in my soul and soon, very soon, it will erupt into quakes, shaking all of Japan.

A very yellow white flash. The nuclear liquids oozes. The pools pull bodies to the bottom. Cool water.

Echos. Echoes. Echoes.

He echoes to out to me 111. 000 I send him back. Pretty people float slowly down to the red and black depths.

They keep going.

And going.

And going.

Go. Go. Go.

Going. Going. Going.

Jab. Jab. Jab.

Jabing.

Hook em with your right.

Hook em with your eye.

Every star. Every planet, they all became one. Every atom kissed, and they all became the same. Vortexing energy's begin to turn the fogs, the bogs; the men Ireland will unmarry.

Movement. Movement. Movement.

Move. Move. Move.

Go. Go. Go.

Going. Going. Going.

Jab.

Jab.

Jabbing.

Then hook them with your right.

Hook them with your eye.

Jonah on the ocean are the branches of the willow tree. Pulinin leaping is Gambino growing and churning the tides.

My uncle.

His mother.

Now their atoms can swirl into one another; vortexing with purple power.

Pulsating out.

Out across the blue globe.

Out into the green forestes.

Down into the dark caves.

Across the Nebraska plains.

They paint the streets of New York. They rain down in Texan and Arizonan Monsoons. They swirl into the ocean. They form into clouds. They water the rainforests reds.

They brush themselves gently against his dark skin. Yellow shoes. They sit at 97368: God's Thumb to hold him.

They sing soft songs to my nautilus mind. Soothing my worried Tsunami dreams of drowning. They made the sound the sea makes to calm me down. Shhh---...

He's grown now. His electric adventure slowing to cool water.. He looks for birdzzz and finds three. Raven be one. Flowers another. A BEE, his friend. Wheat flavored shoes stride him.

The wheat soft sands of earth on his fingertips, his mother's caress across his cheek.He tilts his head up to ponder the stars. Out past the brightness, they lay waiting. His mother already beside him in whispered kisses. She smiles blue to him. He drops his reds and blacks; and allows himself to fall in love again as he's looking out to sea down below; his Finally Hometown seemingly inches away.

I'm green that day. I sit low for you My Bird. I can feel that red scorched earth of Sedona in my veins. I can see it in the sunsets over the Knob Hill. Hozier pleads me to move, crying out...

...Run to Her! Run to her! Your lover!

Ireland-green soothes me in this teal world of Linkin' City. How the powder blue wisps of wind caress my cheek! Cool shoreline water blues my feet while I sit and attempt Inception on myself.

Love. It has eluded me, even here in 97368. Motherhood fulfills deep tidal swells inside me, but my spirit calls out for even more. And why is wanting more so wrong?

Every. Single. Night.

EVERY night my turtle-dove!

I, your fern colored Cactus lays awake in bed and envisions you before her. My hands reach out to touch you, as you turn into mine, scooping me in the air; into your arms. You push me along into protection and love.

Love is the warmest colour. And you, are every god damn colour I've ever seen.

Brilliance love. Brilliance!

I can feel you, my Yellowed Bird. Your light feathered body tucked under my thumb like the hill you are on. You lay yourself in palms. I kiss your head and whisper sounds that the Sea makes.

Shhhh. Three soft kisses atop your head. My love knights you.

My beakless bird; Thor wears no shoes at all. Eaten by his greedy mother, I'm here for you now and I will not let you down! I will carry you my love. From Nebraska sunflowers to Phoenix fire, I cradle you to my chest. 23 hours of driving till you're home. 2 hour stops for your feed. Filled crops from warmed mixtures.

Your sweet melody, it wakes me. It fills me. It heals me. And I cannot say sorry enough, that I would end up failing you all over again. You didn't deserve it. I promise I meant better for you my yellow bird! I promise! My never ending love I know, is not enough to convince you so.

I long to do right by the BYE.

Baptized in salt and fresh water. Devils Lake and Cascade River your montessori. The ocean your chapel. Wezzz wears black shoes this day.

The Otis Fires my soul, burning off the dead single piece of luggage I carried for far too long. My joy finds me, and I fall in love again, with myself.

Reneé wears pink shoes. Eight years they soul my feet, a mountain I climbed step by step, ending the turmoil of my 21 year long journey. I have died a thousand times since then. I have fallen from mountains. I've been pushed off cliffs. I have been shot by guns. I've drowned in rivers and oceans alike. Men, they have murdered me. Tortur, I've endured. Spears they have stabbed me. In my snatch fitzed-pleasure, finally, I tire no more but to numb.

Logan's Rd leads to Roads End.

And it is there that finally...

I smile…

He smiles---

He sings...

I sing---

He feels.

I touch.

He calls out, and I echo back.

01110011

Crying zeros, while I'm hearing 111's

3.1415

< 3

+12 and +21

Equals = 3 x 3 (9)

1.618

[(111)x(000)]

Echoing.

Echos.

Echo.

Pi... Einstein's birthday is mine. My atoms are his. His atoms are yours. My uncle. Your mother. My bird. Your father. Swirling together in Interstellars Tesseract.

97368 took me to the place I love, and it took me all the way. I had a dream and I dared to live it. You had a desire and you braved to seek it.

Shhh, I hear your echos my love. "Don't go", you say.

Stay. ..- -.. -. .--

111

000

Copy

Over

Out.

{∆}